A while back, I got to ranting & raving to Stefania about Tolkien\u2019s races (hobbits, dwarves, elves, orcs, etc) and their respective copywriting styles, after re-watching the Hobbit movies.<\/p>\n
My opinion:<\/p>\n
1. Guys like Dan Kennedy & Gene Schwartz have a \u201cdwarf\u201d copywriting style:<\/p>\n
Not much subtlety (pure sales pitch).<\/p>\n
And completely, un-apologetically in-your-face headlines (with the whole offer right in the headline sometimes) & offers, bulling their way through price resistance and skepticism with brute force, with almost Berserker-like intensity.<\/p>\n
2. Guys like the late copywriters Jim Rutz & Gary Halbert have an \u201celf\u201d copywriting style:<\/p>\n
Almost the exact opposite as dwarves.<\/p>\n
Very little brute force.<\/p>\n
Lots of nimbleness.<\/p>\n
Not so much using brute force as re-directing force of skepticism & price resistance back at the customer, using it to such an extent that I\u2019ve heard both of them (in interviews) say they\u2019ve run ads where they forgot to even include a call to action. The reader was just so caught up in the story, sucked in, not even realizing they are being sold, some would hunt the client down to buy anyway.<\/p>\n
3. Then there are \u201chybrids\u201d of elves & dwarves (dwelves?) who do both brilliantly.<\/p>\n
Like, for example, guys like John Carlton.<\/p>\n
And especially Email Players subscriber Gary Bencivenga.<\/p>\n
4. There are also Hobbit-style ads.<\/p>\n
I think of ads that look \u201cotherworldly\u201d and that may be complete nonsense \u2014 but come off as innocent, fun, and even if you know they are a bit exaggerated (or outright fantasy) you don\u2019t care.<\/p>\n
i.e., the Sea-Monkeys ads of yore in old comicbooks.<\/p>\n
Or the Charles Atlas \u201cHow An Insult Made a Man Out of Mac\u201d ad.<\/p>\n
5. Then there are orc-style ads.<\/p>\n
Those are the ads that may pull like crazy but are hot, steaming piles of bull shyt, filled with lots of hype, lies, & deceit, preying on the public\u2019s sense of trust or low information. The whole coordinated jab push by big government & big pharma & big media fan fiction (dancing ShtickTok nurses at supposedly overrun ICUs or, my favorite, \u201cI\u2019m on my death bed, if only I\u2019d gotten the jab!\u201d big pharma exec fan fiction) being probably the most successful orc copywriting.<\/p>\n
Frankly, Fauxci even kinda looks like an orc\u2026<\/p>\n
Not to mention the legions of ads selling fake cures for diseases.<\/p>\n
Or prosperity preacher advertising.<\/p>\n
Or surgeons pushing elective surgeries that cause pain & agony.<\/p>\n
Or even garden variety classified ads from the old timey days selling x-ray glasses, books on how to grow taller, mortgage scams, fly-by-night investment schemes, and the list goes on and on and on.<\/p>\n
Anyway, as far as legit copywriters:<\/p>\n
Some are dwarves.<\/p>\n
Others are elves.<\/p>\n
And some are a bit of both, with hardly any hobbits anymore.<\/p>\n
For a framework for using email that can be used any of the copywriting races, go here:<\/p>\n